


boys only want love if it's torture

by lucashemwow



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blank Space AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, canon complaint, end game muke and cashton - Freeform, implied/referenced eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucashemwow/pseuds/lucashemwow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>don't say i didn't, say i didn't warn you.</i>
</p><p>Ashton had always thought Luke was beautiful. Pale, delicate, fragile - everything Ashton had been warned against.</p>
            </blockquote>





	boys only want love if it's torture

**Author's Note:**

> based of blank space by taylor swift. also i havent read this myself so i dont know how it is, if it sucks im sorry. its probably weird.
> 
>  _reminder:_ please do not post/repost any of the things i have written and posted without my permission, no matter the website or the circumstance.

Ashton had always thought Luke was beautiful. Pale, delicate, fragile - everything Ashton had been warned against.

In the small town they lived in, Luke's name was tossed around like a ball at recess, always the subject of the gossip spoken in hairdressers' rooms.

Luke had a reputation, a very big, elaborate one. He was an object placed on someone's shelf for weeks before being passed to someone else, so smudged with others' fingerprints that no one could see through to the scared boy underneath. They all said he was insane, moving from person to person so quickly that his list of ex-lovers was long enough to muddle your brain.

Ashton wasn't one of those lovers.

Ashton had been entranced by the way Luke moved from the second he saw him, the way his shoulders hunched down to make him smaller than he was. Ashton had been absolutely gone for the boy at the first shy smile sent his way.

Ashton supposed that's why his life had spiralled out of control.

From the first date he'd taken Luke on, the boy had had him wrapped around his little finger, bent over backwards to keep him happy. Slowly, Luke had drawn him in, full of wide eyes and shy giggles, whispered secrets under thick sheets, cold toes pressed to his calves.

No one had been able to crack through to Luke, that was why people got bored and left, that was why Luke had such a long list. Ashton was the first to get Luke to open up, tell him the things that plagued his childhood, the scars on his hips and thighs, the cut of his ribs from where he'd been dangerously underweight with all his meals down the drain.

Ashton thought the only way to describe Luke was as a nightmare dressed as a daydream.

With the more secrets told to Ashton, Luke got almost... _agitated_ , too nervous to ever sit still unless Ashton was inside of him, over him, holding him down.

Luke was a stick of dynamite lit from both sides, a time bomb with only a three second countdown started six seconds ago, a shaken up can of soda someone was reaching to open. He was a bull who'd seen the red, he was a dam with crumbling walls, he was a volcano thousands of years overdue for an eruption.

Luke was getting closer and closer to his breaking point.

The day he hit the breaking point was a day Ashton would never forget.

Ashton's phone had lit up with a text from his mother, though through Luke's jealousy drunk mind, the word _Mom_ had turned into a name that wasn't his, someone better than him. He'd broken down, crying harder than Ashton had ever seen, refusing to be comforted, demanding to know who Ashton had met.

The love Luke had had for Ashton was dissolving to anger, pushing him to trash the mansion he lived in, driving Ashton further and further away from him.

Ashton didn't really remember what happened after that. Only that Luke had demanded he leave, shoving him out the door with his belongings in his arms.

It had been over, just like that. Months of something that felt him breathless, gone up in flames in an instant.

They'd been too young, taking it too far for what they were capable of, and now Ashton knew that.

He'd met a beautiful man in the downtown bakery, two months after Luke. He was gorgeous, but strong and sure, tanned and tattooed with an open smile. He wasn't Luke. He was Calum.

Ashton had fallen in love with Calum in a way that was healthy this time, laughing the nights away cuddled under the sheets to keep away the chill.

No matter what, however, Luke was still on his mind.

He watched Luke fall for another boy from afar, the boy so much like Luke Ashton wondered how it could possibly work. He was tall, pale, delicate and soft, with shocking bright red. His name was Michael.

Michael and Luke were good for each other, Ashton soon realised, the two of them always smiles and rainbows when they were together. Ashton hoped they lasted forever, as Michael's name had been written over Ashton's in the blank space of Luke's life.

The high hadn't been worth the pain for him and Luke, but Luke wasn't insane, he knew that. Luke was a scared boy who needed the right person to help him. That person was Michael.

Ashton and Calum left the town with no goodbye, disappearing into the night with everything they owned, leaving behind the past and starting anew. Ashton still felt Luke's eyes on him, but knew he was happy with Michael.

Ashton couldn't say he hadn't been warned about Luke, but he also couldn't say he regretted it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, please tell me what you thought in the comments and dont forget to leave kudos


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